didn't.'
'So what are you going to tell him?' asked Eichmann.
'Not much. That you didn't get your visa. That I didn't have a proper opportunity to see much more than that you cheated on your expenses. I mean, I'll have to tell him something.'
Eichmann nodded. 'Yes, that's good. It's not what he's looking for, of course. He wants something more. To take over all the functions of our department.' He clapped me on the shoulder. 'Thanks, Gunther. You are a real mensch, do you know that? Yes. You can tell him I bought a nice new tropical suit, on expenses. That will piss him off.'
'You did buy it on expenses,' said Hagen. 'Not to mention a whole load of other stuff besides. Solar topees, mosquito nets, walking boots. He's brought more kit than the Italian army. Except for the one thing we really need. We don't have any pistols. We're about to meet some of the most dangerous terrorists in the Middle East and we don't have any means of protecting ourselves.'
Eichmann pulled a face, which wasn't difficult. His normal expression was a sort of grimace and his mouth was usually a cynical rictus. Whenever he looked at me I thought he was going to tell me he didn't like my tie. 'I'm sorry about that,' he told Hagen. 'I told you. It wasn't my fault. But I don't know what we can do about it now.'
'We've been to the German embassy and asked them for some weapons,' Hagen told me. 'And they won't give us any without proper authorization from Berlin. And if we asked for that it would make us look like a couple of amateurs.'
'Can't you go to a gunsmith and buy one?' I asked.
'The British are so alarmed about the situation in Palestine that they've stopped the sale of weapons in Egypt,' said Hagen.
I had been looking for a way to insinuate myself into their meeting with Haj Amin. And I now saw how I might do it. 'I can get a gun,' I said. I knew the very man who would lend me one.
'How?' asked Eichmann.
'I used to be a cop, at the Alex,' I said smoothly. 'There are always ways of getting guns. Especially in a city as big as this. You just have to know where to look. Low life is the same the world over.'
I went to see Fievel Polkes in his room at the Savoy.
'I've found a way to get into their meeting with Haj Amin,' I explained. 'They're scared of Al- Istiqlal and the Young Men's Muslim Brotherhood. And they're scared of the Haganah. Somehow they managed to leave their guns back in Germany.'
'They're right to be scared,' said Polkes. 'If you hadn't agreed to spy on them we might have tried to assassinate them. And then blame it on the Arabs. We've done that before. Very possibly the Grand Mufti might have a similar idea about blaming something on us. You should be careful, Bernie.'
'I've offered to buy a gun in Cairo's underworld,' I said. 'And offered them my services as a bodyguard.'
'Do you know where to buy a gun?'
'No. I was rather hoping I might borrow that Webley you're carrying.'
'No problem,' said Polkes. 'I can always get another.' He took off his jacket, unbuckled the shoulder holster, and handed over his rig. The Webley felt as heavy as an encyclopedia and almost as unwieldy. 'It's a top-break double-action forty-five,' he explained. 'If you do have to shoot it, just remember two things. One, it's got a kick like a mule. And two, it's got a bit of history attached to it, if you know what I mean. So make sure you throw it in the Nile, if you can. One more thing. Be careful.'
'You already told me that.'
'I mean it. These are the bastards who murdered Lewis Andrews, the acting high commissioner of Galilee.'
'I thought that was your lot.'
Polkes grinned. 'Not this time. We're in Cairo now. Cairo is not Jaffa. The British tread more carefully here. Haj Amin won't hesitate to kill all three of you if he thinks you might make a deal with us, so even if you don't like what he says, pretend you do. These people are crazy. Religious fanatics.'
'So are you, aren't you?'
'No, we're just fanatics. There's a difference. We don't expect God to be pleased if we blow someone's head off. They do. That's what makes them crazy.'
The meeting took place in the vast suite Eichmann had reserved for himself at the National Hotel.
Shorter by a head than any man in the room, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem wore a white turban and a long black cassock. He was a man quite without humor and had an air of self-importance that was doubtless helped by the fawning way his followers behaved around him. Most curious to me was the realization of how much he looked like Eichmann. Eichmann with a graying beard, perhaps. Maybe that explained why they got on so well.
Haj Amin was accompanied by five men wearing dun-colored tropical suits and the tarboosh, which is the Egyptian version of the fez. His interpreter was a man with a gray Hitler-style mustache, a double chin, and an assassin's eyes. He carried a thick carved walking stick, and like the other Arabs--with the exception of Haj Amin himself--he was wearing a shoulder holster.
Haj Amin, who was in his early forties, spoke only Arabic and French, but his interpreter's German was good. The German news-paperman, Franz Reichert, who was now recovered from his earlier stomach upset, translated into Arabic for the two SD men. I sat near the door, listening to the conversation and affecting a vigilance that seemed appropriate given my self-appointed role as SD bodyguard. Most of what was said came from Haj Amin himself, and was deeply disturbing--not least because of the profound shock I experienced at the depth of his anti-Semitism. Hagen and Eichmann disliked the Jews. That was common enough in Germany. They made jokes about them and wanted to see them excluded from German public life, but, to me, Hagen's anti-Semitism seemed naive and Eichmann's, little more than opportunism. Haj Amin, on the other hand, hated Jews as a dog might have hated a rat.
'The Jews,' said Haj Amin, 'have changed life in Palestine in such a way that, if it goes unchecked, it must inevitably lead to the destruction of the Arabs in Palestine. We do not mind people coming to our country as visitors. But the Jew comes to Palestine as an alien invader. He comes as a Zionist and as someone equipped with all the trappings of modern European life, which are themselves an affront to the most sacred concepts of Islam. We are not accustomed to European ways. We do not want them. We wish our country to remain just as it was before the Jews started coming here in large numbers. We want no progress. We want no prosperity. Progress and prosperity are the enemies of true Islam. And there has already been enough talk. Talk with the British, with the Jews, with the French. Now we are talking with the Germans. But I tell you this, nothing but the sword will decide the fate of this country now. If it is the policy of Germany to support Zionism, then you should be aware of this. It is our policy that all Zionists and those who support Zionism will be massacred to the last man.
'But I have not come here to threaten your Fuhrer, Herr Eichmann. Germany is not an imperialistic country like Great Britain. It has not harmed a single Arab or Muslim state in the past. It was allied to the Ottoman Empire during the war. I myself served in the Ottoman army. Germany has only ever fought our imperialistic and Zionist enemies. The French. The British. The Russians. The Americans. For which your people have our gratitude and admiration. Only, you must not send us any more Jews, Herr Eichmann.
'I have read the Fuhrer's great book. In translation only. However, I believe I may flatter myself that I know the Fuhrer's mind, gentlemen. He hates the Jews because of the defeat they brought upon Germany in 1918. He hates the Jews because it was the Jew, Chaim Weizmann, who invented the poison gas that injured him during the war, and caused him temporary blindness. For his delivery we give thanks to God. He hates the Jew because it was the Jew who brought America into the war on the side of the British Zionists, and helped to defeat Germany. I understand all of this only too well, gentlemen, since I hate the Jew, too. I hate the Jew for any number of reasons. But most of all I hate the Jew for his persecution of Jesus, who was a prophet of God. Because of that,
